During business hours in supermarkets and the like, unattended check-out lanes need to be blocked so that people are forced to exit the store through one of the attended lanes. Presently, in some supermarkets, shopping carts, candy racks, or boxes are moved into unused lanes to block egress. However, such obstructions present a hazard in the event of an emergency. Other supermarkets put a chain up across unused check out lanes, but this is easy for a patron to pass through unnoticed.
Existing systems do not include barriers that are easy to put into place, indicate when a patron is moving the barrier, yet can be effortlessly put aside to clear the aisle for emergency use.
There are a number of prior art systems that disclose alarms which are triggered when an intruder attempts to break through a barrier. However, these systems are almost exclusively designed to protect against a burglar's intrusion, and, are not designed specifically for use in supermarket aisles or the like.
These systems are exemplified in U.S. Pat. No. 4,553,134, by Holt. It describes a spring loaded telescoping rod as a barrier across a window or other egress. One end of the rod holds an electric contact in place. A local or remote alarm is triggered when the contact is toggled by anyone tampering with the rod.
Another example is the security device described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,536,754, by Holce, et al. This device is based on a magnetic switch which is recessed into a wall, and able to accept the magnetized end of a barrier device. When the barrier chain is strung across the egress and the proper magnetic end is put into the hole containing the magnetic switch, the system is armed. Tampering with the barrier triggers a local or remote alarm.
Many such security systems are described in the prior art, however, neither of these systems or other prior art systems discloses an integrally formed barrier and motion sensor. Nor do any of the prior art devices work on the principle of a local alarm that is useful in supermarkets and like situations in which the barrier itself must be immediately removable, in the case of an emergency, by the person who is going through the egress, and in which installation and removal of the alarm must be simple and quickly done.